FluidSurveys version 5.1 has introduced several innovative and useful question types to our online software tool. Today’s blog post will showcase the Image Heat Map question, which allows users to visualize where people will click on a particular image. Let me show you how it works!

What Sets the Image Heat Map Question Apart from Other Survey Questions?

The beauty of the Image Heat Map question is its ability to get real-world and real-time reactions from respondents on a fixed-list or email survey. With this question, respondents are able to give gut reactions on where they would click on an image. This is extremely useful when measuring whether your site is user friendly, or what people find most appealing about an image. Here are two examples of how this question type has changed online surveying forever:

Let’s say you are making a magazine cover and want to measure which headlines draw the most eyes. Sure, you could ask a multiple choice question asking respondents to select their favourite headline. However, showing your respondents an image of the magazine cover and allowing them to see the headlines as they would actually appear, better mimics their buying experience. Considering the fact that magazines are usually set up for impulsive buys in store line ups or stocked on shelves, including the proper visual display and getting that real-time reaction becomes imperative to the relevancy of the survey results.

Switching gears to website feedback surveys, we know that many companies will measure the effectiveness of their webpages by asking visitors to reflect on their user experience and answer survey questions in a pop-up or after the fact. Though gathering feedback is great, it doesn’t give the full story of how people are interacting with the site. In fact, many respondents refuse to include or admit very important information. For example, people will often omit from their response that it took them several tries to find the link they were looking for. The Image Heat Map allows the surveyor to see exactly where people are clicking in real-time, avoiding potential respondent bias.

As you can see, the advantage of the Image Heat Map question is that you are observing your respondents’ behaviour as opposed to gaining their feedback. Because, as most online researchers know, there is a difference from what people do and what people say they do.

How You Can Use the Image Heat Map Question

The Image Heat Map is the number one way you can use online surveying to understand your website traffic. As previously stated, if you want to know how your visitors are going to navigate a webpage, put an image of it into this question type and ask respondents to click the area they find most appealing.

You could even go one step further by asking your respondents how they would navigate to a particular point on your website. Do this by placing an image of your webpage in the question and asking respondents to click wherever they think would lead them to a certain section of the site, like the contact or pricing page. Your results would not only measure how intuitive your site really is, but also effectively display any patterns of behaviour between your site and its visitors.

Beyond being used to measure webpage navigation, this powerful new tool will work with any image, including pictures, magazine covers, artwork, or groups of people. This will allow you to ask participants to point out areas of interest or quiz respondents on certain issues pertaining to the image. For example, let’s say a lab manager wants to quiz her employees on lab safety. She could present a picture of a lab worker unsafely conducting an experiment and ask respondents to click all the errors they see.

How it Works

It’s time to see the question type in action! The video below takes a look at how to set up the Image Heat Map in the survey editor, as well as how to read its results in both the reporting and response section:

Need a step-by-step explanation of how to use this question? No problem! Check out our documentation by clicking here.